Just Can't Fix
by Mardigny
Summary: Normally Kaiba's outer shell is useful in deterring problems. But there's one thing that it just can't fix. Rated M because I'm not sure I can get away with T. Puppyshipping. Kind of.


So seeing as I haven't written anything in over a year, I'm hoping that by writing something I enjoy reading - if done right - but don't actually ship (Puppyshipping) I can get a bit of practice in before I start on a real story. All characters belong to Kazuki Takahashi.

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><p><span>Just Can't Fix<span>

This time, as my heartbeat slowed and the excitement of the shared moment began to fade, nothing really felt… conclusive. There was still a question lingering in the air as I rolled off of him and onto my back, hearing the sheets shift around my body, the cacophony of feeling slipping into the silence of sleep.

Normally this would have been everything I would want tonight. There was no difference between tonight and any other night within the past five months. But for some reason I now felt more worried than tired, more fearful than satisfied, a gnawing sense of wrong still flitting about beneath my breastbone, keeping myself from from shutting my eyes.

It took me a couple of minutes of hearing his breathing beside me to realize exactly why I couldn't simply forget it all like I always did and to wake up in the morning with half of the bed empty. Wake up and not see him for another week.

I realized for the first time that I would miss him.

I sighed, but it came out a groan, and I passed my hand through my hair in something resembling frustration but… I couldn't quite place it. I was mad at myself for feeling this way about someone I wasn't supposed to care about, someone supposed to be some sort of outlet for these urges instead of a repository, mad that despite knowing full well how dangerous of an idea this had been I had still let –

"Something wrong, Kaiba?" the dog - Joey - said sleepily as he propped himself on his elbow, face obscured by the black. "Did I do something wrong?"

"No," I said. His eyes were watching me breathe through the darkness.

_No, _I_ did.  
><em>  
>My feet swung out and touched the floor as I sat up, and I felt my fingers grip the edge of the bed too tightly. There was no need to turn away from him but I did anyway, and I must have moaned angrily again, because then there was a flurry of sheets moving and then he was next to me again.<p>

"Look, I can't fix it next time if ya don't tell me. "

My lips pursed. I wanted to tell him. I wanted to say how this had gone too far for me and he needed to leave _now _but I didn't want him to go _now _and that he was trapped in the part of me that gave a shit and I wanted him to be _happy _with it. But I knew that he thought I only thought of him as my plaything. He had been for so long. Why should he think any differently?

I had to stop it here before it could worsen.

"Get out."

There. I said it. But I knew it wouldn't work.

"Wha…?"

"Get out. Get out before…"

My voice trailed off, and I felt his eyes on me. He didn't move.

"I make you get out," I forced myself to say.

There was no adamant protest; perhaps in his mind he had always expected me to jettison him at some point. He thought he would make a mistake this entire time. It told me that for him, all of this – every single time – all of this was nothing.

"Look, just tell me Kaiba. I... I'll go, but tell me what to do better."

It took more courage than I thought to respond, "and don't come back."

There was stunned silence, and the bedroom felt like an abyss, devoid now of both light and sound. But the longer it dragged on the more I could hear my own heart beating inside my chest, and there was a slight ringing my ears, and my body filled in the all the ugly holes in what I could sense.

Before a warm and reassuring hand was laid upon my shoulder for several seconds.

"Been fun."

Then it withdrew, and he got up and left me sitting there, leaving me to lose sense of what it felt like to have him touch me, to comfort myself in the dark again –

"You know too much," I blurted out to the room.

There was a pause before he responded, "'Bout what?"

Difficult question. _Wrong_ question.

"I…. look, Joey, it's more than…. it's more than you think…"

There was a derisive sort of snort from behind me, and I whipped around to face the part of the black I thought he was standing in. When he realized I must have been glaring at him, I could feel him look back at me as if incredulous.

"You afraid this could get out or somethin'?"

Well, yes, but that wasn't on the forefront of my mind right now. I was deathly afraid he would_ listen_ to me.

"It's more than that," I spat.

"Don't tell me you… that you…"

Any facial expressions or helpful body language I might have utilized were useless here. In the inky black he couldn't see me, and the only thing he could hear was my normal self. The self I thought I _had _to be, because it had fixed everything else before. The self that had precluded any sort of relationship like this in years past -

"Yeah, I… Kaiba, you're right. I should go – "

"If you would listen - "

"It's for the best," Joey deadpanned firmly.

That's when I realized it never could have worked anyway. I knew it wouldn't have. Somewhere. Another part of me, the part of my brain I could hear, was screaming something like _goddamnit, why can't I fix this -  
><em>  
>"So… " I swallowed. "I won't hear anything about this. Not in some magazine, not from the media, not from any - "<p>

"Nope." Joey's voice sounded like he was clenching his jaw.

"… and not from you," I finished, straining to not sound despondent.

And while I couldn't feel him leave, with my brain preoccupied with trying to decide whether he had picked up on my hint or not, there was some comfort in knowing he couldn't see my heartbroken smile.


End file.
